War and Peace. Chinese Democracy. Suicide Squad. These are the consensus picks for the greatest Works of Art by mankind ever. But close behind comes DuckTales, the hand-drawn, independent, Ayn Rand-ian objectivist serial that graced analog television from 1987 to 1990.
But if millennials have their way, America would pretend it never existed.
Take Huey*, an 18-year-old boy-child who works with me. Earlier this year, Huey saw me wearing my new DuckTales t-shirt. His expression was blank.
“What’s that?” said Huey.
“My new DuckTales t-shirt.” said I, beaming with pride, high-fiving myself mentally.
“…” said Huey, as if “…” were a thing you could say.
It turned out Huey, a millennial born in 1998, doesn’t know what DuckTales is. And he’s not alone.
I polled 193 people who follow me on Twitter for some reason. They answered two questions: what’s your age and do you know what DuckTales is?
All 93 respondents born (roughly) in the 80s knew well of Scrooge’s animated adventures in late capitalism, as did a healthy chunk of those born in the 70s (32 respondents), who were familiar with the neoliberal vision of Fenton Crackshell.
The Olds, as expected, were not well versed in the travails of the Beagle Brothers and Magica De Spell, aside from a spike among a few (3) boomers. This is fine, as they were busy destroying the housing market and neglecting public infrastructure while the show was on the air.
And then there’s the younger millennials, who are wrecking the curve.
In their defense, DuckTales‘ initial run ended in 1990 and the Disney Afternoon programming block was cancelled before these kids were out of diapers. In a way, we’ve failed them, but in another way, youth culture confuses me and it makes me feel inadequate and therefore it must be Bad.
| Age | # Familiar | # Respondents |
|---|---|---|
| 14-17 | 8 | 9 |
| 18-21 | 22 | 32 |
| 22-25 | 17 | 20 |
| 26-29 | 33 | 33 |
| 30-33 | 28 | 28 |
| 34-37 | 19 | 19 |
| 38-41 | 13 | 14 |
| 42-45 | 13 | 14 |
| 46-49 | 6 | 7 |
| 50-53 | 4 | 6 |
| 54-57 | 2 | 3 |
| 58-61 | 3 | 3 |
| 62+ | 2 | 3 |
Of course, the failure of millennials to appreciate DuckTales might be allayed by the 2017 revival of the cartoon. Maybe they’ll watch it ironically.
Or you could just read Carl Banks’ Scrooge comics for Gemstone, which are classics.
